Ungarische Künstlerarchive der Akademie der Künste in Berlin

The meeting will be held in German.

In der nächsten Sitzung des Arbeitskreises Semi-Peripheral Theory | Tendencies of Contemporary Theory Production in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe wird Katalin Madácsi-Laube (Akademie der Künste Berlin) zu Gast sein.

Following the announcement of László Krasznahorkai as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a question arose on a Hungarian state television talk show convened for the occasion: which institution would take over the prize winner’s literary archive in future? The panel was poorly informed. Meanwhile, journalists searched the internet and found a press release from the Austrian National Library dated 2024, announcing that the Viennese institution would be taking over the Hungarian writer's estate.

Krasznahorkai’s case is just the latest example of a recent trend in the archival landscape, with an increasing number of prominent Hungarian artists choosing to place their archives in foreign collections rather than in Hungary. Consequently, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin has developed a new focus on Hungarian artists’ archives. These include the pre- and posthumous estates of writers Imre Kertész, György Konrád, Péter Esterházy and Péter Nádas, as well as filmmaker István Szabó.

Katalin Madácsi-Laube is a research assistant at the Literary Archive of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. She will provide insights into the archive’s prominent holdings, the background to this current development, and its contexts. She will also discuss the consequences already visible for the institutions maintaining the collections, conducting research, and cultural policy.